“I know, which is why I wasn’t necessarily accusing her of being affiliated with them, but maybe with something else. Another gang or breakaway sect, a more organized version of The ID, with a more sinister purpose.”
“Oh, really?” Darryl chuckled. “And what can be more sinister than raping and murdering for no reason?”
“I don’t know. But maybe we can get her to tell us.”
“Dangerous thinking,” Adam said. “If you let your thoughts travel down a straight enough route for a long enough time, you could reach the conclusion our Watcher units are nothing more than a more organized version of The Infinite Definite. But we have no sinister purpose here. What you have seen so far places her more on our side than theirs.”
“Yeah, come on, Goldner, really, what is it about her that’s setting you on edge?”
“Well, unlike you,” Robert said, “who just wants suckers to believe he’s an angel, this Darden girl really does believe she’s an angel. A true-to-life angel. Not like in the Bible or Qur’an, but in a modern-day scripture. Not an Old Testament or a New Testament but a Now Testament that she and her allies are composing by their actions, by the lives they live.”
Darryl cocked his head. “She said that?”
“Not exactly that, but she didn’t just call herself an angel. She used a key term: Arkangel. I’ve run across their kind before.”
“When?” Darryl asked.
Robert squinted at him. “When you were busy elsewhere, partner. These so-called Arkangels, they’re on a mission from Xyn. They think they’re some kind of artists, like a lot of Infinite-Definite associates think of themselves, but these Arkangels are artists in the process of remaking themselves into something else, beyond artists, beyond angels. The lives they live are supposed to be like the poetic scripture or allegorical legends that’ll be the basis of the next Creation. They’re not using words for their compositions. They’re using actions.”
Darryl shrugged. “Okay. And?”
“So the idea of a next Creation implies that something will destroy this one,” Robert said. “Something like The ID’s Flood. These Arkangels just have to be allies of The ID, somehow.”
While carrying out their duties for the IAI, Robert and many other Watcher agents had heard rumors of the Flood, a deluge that could consume the entire Earth, and even extend beyond it. Through dimensional leaks, XynKroma could seep into, rain on, and flood all levels of Reality. Heaven&Hell could relocate to exist far beyond subconscious minds—invading dreams, invading the conscious, invading what is known as “real life,” the four-dimensional world and universe—forcing everyone and everything to live in XynKroma’s anarchic muddle. It wouldn’t be anything so banal as governments collapsing and roving citizens behaving like jungle creatures (as if that hadn’t already been happening for the past decade). No—it would be a flash flood of unrestrained consciousness, giving reign to Xyn’s senseless, incomprehensible laws of physics. All of space and time could be totally reconfigured. It would be as if a Meth-addicted Ovid were given a heavenly pen and hellish license to rewrite all of Creation into a hyperverse. The events described in the Roman poet’s Metamorphoses would seem commonplace by comparison.
Robert once read a theory on the Internet explaining how the present universe came into existence fourteen billion years ago. The original universe had ten dimensions rather than four, but it was unstable. Thus, it broke down, resulting in a six-dimensional universe and a four-dimensional universe, the latter’s rapid expansion causing the Big Bang, an explosion of matter that eventually resulted in the cosmos more or less known today. The six-dimensional universe shrunk down to a size smaller than an atom, and it may in some way account for teleportation, time travel, and the other fantastical weirdness experienced by particles at the quantum level.
Robert’s math skills only took him so far. Not being a physicist, he didn’t fully understand what he’d read (he later read there were maybe more than ten dimensions involved). He also didn’t completely comprehend how the Flood would occur, but he was able to see the parallels between the scientific theory and actual happenings. Dimensional leaks from Xyn were a fact, and something was causing them. Over the past year, there’d been sightings of some leaks, most dubious, a few credible, but all of them reports of fantastical creatures, constructs, or settings that didn’t belong on this planet, or even in this solar system. Maybe they were aberrations, maybe not. But if anyone could turn all of Reality into a horrorshow, it was the practitioners of Dirty-Light Magick—The Infinite Definite.
One of the more talkative and articulate Infinite-Definite associates Robert had subdued four months ago volunteered to tell a bit about a goal he and his like-minded fellows all ultimately shared. “It’s DNA strands taking on lives of their own,” the terrorist had said, “literally becoming and acting just like satanic serpents. It’s a magickal Eve plucking atoms and biting them, splitting them, trillions at a time.” Robert knew these were just poor metaphors for universal chaos. That’s what many and maybe all in The ID were fighting, playing, living, and killing for. It was only within the past hour Robert had begun to contemplate what an Arkangel’s role in all of this might be.
“Did Ava say anything about a flood?” Darryl asked.
“No,” Robert said, “but—”
“Mister Goldner,” Adam said with slight note of impatience, “I am not following your logic.”
Robert clenched his teeth. He wasn’t exactly following it himself. He was trying to make an intuitive leap and hoped Adam would at least humor him, saying he’d at least consider what Robert had said. He tried again.
“These Arkangels could be using The ID as shock troops of some kind. Unwitting dupes. Useful idiots. And in the meantime, the socalled artistic actions taken by Arkangels on Reality’s surface are somehow being translated in Xyn. What they’re doing on the surface, in this plane of existence, is having a direct effect there, so that after the realm overwhelms us…” Robert lowered his head as his eyebrows knit together. He was stuck. He wasn’t a learned art critic, or even a casual student of art; he didn’t have the tools necessary to even guess the Arkangel-ID connection. “I…I don’t know.” He’d talked himself into a wall, but he just knew he’d been on right track.
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Darryl said.
“Of course it doesn’t make sense, damn it, I’m talking about XynKroma!” He may’ve been up against a wall, but it was no obstacle to his frustration.
“Please calm down,” Adam said. “You are overreacting.”
He knew he was, and he felt he had a good reason. But out of respect, Robert took a deep breath and began again, this time getting at the root of his suspicion and interrupting Darryl, who’d begun to say something meaningless about artists.
“Let’s look at this mathematically,” Robert said, irritation still evident in his voice. “This Ava girl shows up in a place, out of nowhere, where we thought we’d find her friend, the sociopathic Virus-infected Marie-Lydia McGillis, who used every electromagnetic trick she could to try to kill everyone at her high school. Okay? Clearly something an ID terrorist would attempt, right? Ava stops her by taking her to XynKroma. They go there together. Now Ava shows up with a chunk of her memory missing, believing she and Marie-Lydia are real angels, truly supernatural beings, and she’s anxious to be hooked up with Marie-Lydia again, her long-lost partner.”
Neither Adam nor Darryl said a word or shifted his gaze from Robert as he paused for another deep breath.
“Add it up,” he said. “This memory-loss stuff is not an accident. Her mind’s been purposely screwed with. She’s been electromagnetically hypnotized.” Robert shot a glance at Darryl as he said it, but Darryl’s face seemed to show he didn’t get the reference— probably because Robert hadn’t used the word “charity.” “Ava’s just waiting for a trigger,” Robert continued, “something visual or verbal. The student interview notes say her friend Marie-Lydia was set off at the school by seeing a picture of
Ava engaged in some sort of kinky sexual act with an older black woman.”
“Really?” Darryl leaned closer. Yeah, Robert thought, now his interest was piqued. As usual, he focused on exactly the wrong things. If he focused on what was important, he would’ve had the student interview notes memorized by now.
“Once Ava’s trigger is pulled,” Robert said, “it’ll set her off. She’ll be complete. She’ll become, I believe, a threat, a dangerous threat to everyone. Which is why I believe it’s a bad idea to have her here. She’s been trained to do something, and it’s not going to be cute.”
“Fine,” Adam said.
Both Watchers stared at him. Only Robert, after shaking off the initial shock, managed to say anything. But he stuttered and made little sense as he tried to ask Adam a series of follow-up questions.
“My grand hope,” Adam said, “is that whatever she is hiding, whatever she may think she is, we can rehabilitate her here and make her one of us. She has the potential to be a great Watcher agent, or a dangerous enemy. Either way, I want her close so we may keep an eye on her, and perhaps discover the hidden purpose of this…artist, as you put it.”
Robert plunged into deeper thought, continuing to calculate all the relevant information he’d gathered, while Darryl spoke up.
“Sir, Goldner may be right to be worried. Really worried.” The tone of his voice had changed. Robert and he were finally on the same wavelength. “It can take a while to rehabilitate someone. And unless we plan to lock her up—”
“That is not how we operate, Mister Ridley.”
“But, sir, I—”
“I know the trigger,” Robert said. “At least, I think I do. She believes she’s a real angel, right? She emphasized that to me, and she never said one word about the White Fire Virus. If she knew about it before she got it, somehow those memories must’ve been blocked or erased. What happens when she finds out that there aren’t any angels—fallen or otherwise—just a bunch of sick, parasite-ridden humans?”
“You may be on to something,” Darryl said.
“Yeah, so our next step is obvious.”
“We let her believe she is truly an angel,” Adam said.
Robert was about to say they should lock Ava in The Burrow’s physical training room, surrounded by seven or so Watcher agents, one of them telling her all the gruesome details about the Virus and another one showing her even more gruesome pictures of carriers in the final days of their lives; then let what happens happen. Robert couldn’t believe what he was hearing from the chairman. This time, he didn’t even attempt to speak. It was Darryl who asked the questions.
“But sir, why? I mean, how could we even pull that off ? She’s bound to find out about the Virus. It still pops up in the news, in spite of the propaganda campaign. It’s only a matter of time before she picks up a newspaper, turns on a television, or starts surfing the net only to come across a story about it. She’ll recognize the symptoms and effects of the Virus, and then…What if Goldner’s right?”
Adam didn’t answer immediately. He instead shifted in his chair to reach for the iron cane propped against the wall behind him.
“We will deal with it,” Adam said as he stood. Robert and Darryl glanced as each other before rising to stand in front of their chairs. Both crossed their arms behind their backs as Adam continued. “That scenario, however, will not take place. Something you did not see in the files on her, Mister Goldner, is something that I neglected to record because I was not sure about it. At least, not until I got to view her up close.
“Miss Darden is a rare type of Virus-carrier. Most of those who get the Virus, and live, can manipulate the properties of light with their bodies and, beyond their control, may have their bodies manipulated by light’s properties; a smaller number, like myself, are simply affected, manipulated by light when it makes contact with our skin; however, a tiny minority occupy the opposite category. They can manipulate light according to their will, but they are no more affected by it than a person who does not have the Virus. Miss Darden is in this category.”
Robert wondered how he could figure all that just by looking at Ava. Had to be something about that helmet of his. What else could he see?
“The news reports fail to discuss this sort of Virus-carrier,” Adam said, “because this type is known only to a miniscule number of specialist researchers. And these carriers are unlikely to call attention to themselves for two primary reasons: their numbers are small, and they do not experience the epileptic attacks, the periods of mental disorder and bouts of sickness the rest of us do. At least, not to the same extent. Hence, they may not need medication or the frequent medical attention. That is why I called Miss Goins in, to confirm or deny if that is the case with this one. If it is, then if and when Miss Darden learns about the Virus, I am sure we can persuade her to believe it is something carried only by those angels who hold a certain rank, a status lower than hers, lower than ‘Arkangel.’”
Adam walked with difficulty toward the door of his main office. Both Robert and Darryl flinched with the urge to help the man, but neither took a step. They would hinder more than help. The iron cane alone was the best aid.
“So while I am asking you two to be kind to our guest, I am also asking you—as I will ask all of the Watchers, MatchMakers, and committee members first thing in the morning—to take more kindly to the term ‘angel.’ After all, as we continue to do our duty, and with more and more success, maybe that is how the world will begin to see us.”
The door to the main office slid shut behind the chairman. There was nothing more he needed to say.
Robert walked The Burrow’s dark corridors with a bad taste in his mouth. Beside him, Darryl spoke, but Robert didn’t hear anything. He was caught up in a dilemma. For the first time, he didn’t know whether he should fully trust Adam or follow his own instincts. Choosing either prospect scared him more than he was willing to admit.
NINE
Darryl had heard the whispered words clearly: “Save the Children.” He figured Adam and Robert had probably missed them; neither of them had said a word about it during the discussion last night. Ava had whispered the words when Adam mentioned his children, and Darryl had recognized the popular phrase at once. It was certainly popular in some sections of Northern Virginia, where Darryl had seen it spray-painted on walls, scrawled on sidewalks, and— he distinctly remembered—finger-written in the dust of a long unwashed van. It had stood out because it was so different from the slogans and statements one usually read in the area’s graffiti, which were primarily the signatures of the region’s ever-multiplying street gangs.
Darryl had gotten up at dawn and spent most of his Sunday morning taking note of each location where he remembered seeing the three-word commandment. He hadn’t bothered to alert Robert to what he was doing. Or Adam. He wasn’t sure he had anything significant, and he didn’t want to waste their time with hunches, or waste his own good reputation on a lump of nonsense. Nor did he care to waste his entire morning fishing in an empty pond. He had a very important date, and didn’t wish to be late.
After triple-checking his list, making sure he’d noted every location he could remember, Darryl returned to The Burrow. board member Vince Ceniza greeted him ecstatically after inviting him into his office.
“I’ve completed a summary of my research based on your most recent trip to XynKroma,” Vince said. “Would you like to review and discuss?”
“Maybe later.” Darryl waved away the offer to take a seat. “Right now, I was hoping you could review and summarize something I’m researching.”
“Oh?” Vince sat on the chair he’d offered to Darryl. “What’s the subject?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe a few things.”
“Have anything to do with the girl you and Robert brought in yesterday?” Vince asked.
“Maybe. Last night, when we met with Adam, she gave us a clue about where she might’ve been before we found her.”
Darryl explained his hunch. Vince on
ly shrugged after hearing it.
“It’s not unusual for someone to inadvertently repeat a phrase they’ve seen written in a few places,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s a psychological thing,” Darryl said. “That’s why I came to you. I want to know why she repeated it. Because she saw it once, and only once, and it held special meaning to her? Because she’s seen it a few times and couldn’t get it out of her head? Because she had something to do with writing it? The phrase is only written in a few places, that I could find. If she visited those places frequently, even one of them, maybe we can trace and figure out her previous place of residence and her previous activities.”
Vince nodded. “You want me to compile and translate this information.”
“Yes,” Darryl said. “I need a map connecting all the locations and giving as much info about each one as possible, including previous ID terrorist sightings.”
Vince Ceniza’s official title was “psychologist,” but insiders knew him as the Institution’s “psychological mapmaker.” He spent much of his time sending willing travelers into XynKroma and recording their experiences in detail after they emerged. It was probably impossible to make a coherent map of such a chaotic realm, but Vince firmly believed that patterns could be discovered, that some sense could be made of the realm. And he thought a truly skilled traveler just might be able to effect some permanent change, some stability among all the chaos. But he didn’t focus all his talents on mapping Xyn. On Reality’s surface, he was able to take bits and pieces of dissimilar ideas and hard facts, and then, like a seventeenth-century metaphysical poet, he could combine things that no normal mind would ever connect in order to reach a brilliant conclusion. He was Darryl’s favorite board member. The two of them could talk for hours when Darryl wasn’t busy.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Vince said. “In the meantime, I’d really like to discuss my report of your last trip to Xyn with you. Understanding it could have serious consequences. During your next trip there, you’re very likely to become susceptible to—”
Broken Angels Page 14
